A new home for ADA at the Australian National University

released almost 3 years ago

The Australian Data Archive central facility at the Australian National University now has a new home. From August 2014, ADA is now hosted at ANU within the newly established Australian Centre for Applied Social Research Methods (AusCen) in the College of Arts and Social Sciences. AusCen is a joint initiative between the Social Research Centre (SRC), an ANU Enterprise business, and The Australian National University (ANU).

AusCen, as a newly established ANU research centre, will be the home of significant Australian capacity in undertaking research into applied social research and evaluation methods. AusCen has been established to meet a need for national leadership in research methods, in order to help raise the level of credible evidence-based research to inform and evaluate policy, programs and initiatives. AusCen will work closely with SRC researchers and methodologists and draws on ANU applied social research, social policy, health and education expertise. AusCen will be responsible for the ANU-SRC Poll, Australian Election Study and the World Values Survey, all of which are available for secondary analysis through ADA.

AusCen aims to:

Build a world-class team of researchers and graduate students in social research methodology, applications and techniques

Develop and validate new and cost-effective data collection methods

Increase the availability and access to secondary data for research across Australia, and

Produce a more sophisticated Australian skills base via training and educational activities.

While ADA is now located within AusCen, the operations of the Archive will continue as they have in the past, with no changes in either organisational structure or personnel. ADA does expect however that this new home will provide opportunites for access to new and different data sources, and will work with AusCen researchers to make them available to the Australian and international research community.